The garden and the forest
This is an entry from my journal.
What is the difference between my land and the mountain at-large? What distinguishes the garden in my vicinity from a forest? Force; the purposeful, controlled use of violence in pursuit of establishing a safe haven for me, my pets, and anybody else I may take care of. The making of my hut is, in essence, the exercise of aggression on my part against other forms of life. Such is the underlying mechanism: I am simply stronger than their combined strength. It even extends to the very landscape, as I have reshaped large parts of what I have touched. I have successfully redirected the stream to not erode my land anymore and managed to transplant canes that further reinforce the soil along that side. I have flattened certain parts and elevated others. All because, at root, I can.
In the process of making a settlement, I have driven away rodents and insects, cut down plants that I cannot keep in my midst, and have favoured the propagation of species that I consider benign to my stay here. Plenty of plants are now thriving under my aegis. I have rescued many almond trees, hawthorns, and blackthorns. They are now growing to their full potential. Several types of herb are also benefiting from the favourable conditions I provide. Grapevines are growing again after decades of suppression and fierce competition. They will yield grapes this year, if all goes well with the weather. Birds of all kinds, from the smallest ones to crows and eagles are finding food all around my hut. I enjoy their presence and am inspired by their exuberance. The force I apply is both destructive and constructive.
There is a clear set of preferences on display. I make the choice over what stays and what is driven away. Such is the inevitable reality of action: to face trade-offs and to pick something over something else. Would it not be nice for everything to subsist equally and for nothing to be left behind? Sounds pleasant, yes. Though this is not how life works. The safety of a human settlement necessarily involves the cleansing of the immediate area from obvious threats and other obstacles. If anybody believes otherwise, then they are prepared to live alongside venomous spiders, potentially lethal snakes, poisonous plants, and the like. I wonder how that will turn out. To me, this is not sustainable. If I truly believed in the notion of equal prosperity for all life forms in my midst I would already be dead because I would not even begin to clear the land, for that would have been an expression of preference of the sort here considered.
There is order to my place. The garden I am creating is increasingly looking more like the culmination of months of continuous labour. Looking at a modest hut, it is easy to believe that it is all peaceful and easy in the mountains. The natural and frugal life has a romantic appeal to it. What romantics are not prepared to contend with is the raw power dynamics at play. If the snakes, for example, could fend me off, I would not be here. This peace, then, is the flip-side of a certain dominion, which itself is the product of my struggles. When I cut down wild vegetation and then dig up the land with the pickaxe, for example, I am making a great effort against a state of affairs that is not favourable to my presence.
This order, which is a precondition for my safety (and by extension of anybody I may take care of), cannot be taken for granted. There is nothing in the nature of things that guarantees it. It only exists as the consequence of my decisiveness in exercising force, else controlled aggression or purposeful violence. It hinges on my continued availability and physical fitness. If I were to be ruled out with injury or disease, the order would eventually unravel, as other forces would gradually yet surely fill in the vacuum. It is me, or rather me qua agent of force, that holds this order together.
“Force”, “aggression”, “violence”… These are terms that sound unnerving and perhaps anti-social. Humans have lived in cities long enough to forget that organised society does not just happen. We take it for granted and then demonise those words by calling them names and assigning to them a negative normative quality. I think such is a misunderstanding of history but also of the simple dynamics of living. The very act of eating, for instance, happens at the expense of another form of life. This is true for omnivorous people as well as vegans. Or do you think that the soy farm you rely on is not a cultivation that is carried out against some wild state of affairs and that the soy plants themselves are not forms of life? Every social order is, in effect, dependent on force to institute, enact, and safeguard its values as well as all the particular prescriptions it maintains. This includes all modern polities that are governed by the rule of law. Indeed, government without the supreme authority to exercise legitimate force when all means of persuasion fail, i.e. sovereignty, is no government at all.
What distinguishes between appropriate use of force and wanton destruction is the thought that goes into it. An individual who resorts to violence in response to stress or frustration is governed by their emotions, is not in control of their actions, and is thus likely to misuse their strength. There is no grand plan at play, no commitment to a cause. By contrast, the person who accounts for the prevailing conditions resorts to violence when it is necessary and operates thus with an understanding of the bigger picture.
In artistic terms, this is the difference between Ares, the god of war, and Athena, the goddess of wisdom. Both are depicted as warriors, yet their dispositions differ substantially. Ares expresses the sheer strength of a man in his prime, yet also shows what many adult males lack: emotional stability. The combination of power and lack of control over one’s emotions is what breeds perpetual war, figuratively and literally. It may seem surprising that Athena, as goddess of wisdom is a warrior then. What would wisdom have to do with warfare? She is presented as the kind of heavy infantry that would fight from the front lines in a phalanx of shields. Athena has in her very imagery the ability for hand to hand combat. She too is capable of violence, no doubt. Yet her disposition is that of emotional stability. It is what allows her to control her force and to thus use it only when she must.
But why should wisdom be expressed through art as a warrior goddess? Why is it not some peaceful figure like an erudite scholar or a meditative monk? Because the Greeks understood that life at-large is an incessant struggle. There is no pure evil in the world just as there is no pure good. It is all admixture or, else, a state of affairs that involves trade-offs and exhibits preference. Wisdom, then, is not about dogmatically remaining equidistant from all possible outcomes, for that is not how life unfolds. It rather consists in the readiness to do what is necessary and to pursue the appropriate course of action under the prevailing conditions.
To say that you will never come to conflict with anything is to consign yourself to extinction. One must thus understand the nuances between Ares and Athena to recognise that the admission of what is happening, such as me enforcing order in and around my hut, is not a glorification of violence. No! It is but a recognition of the inescapable realities of living and of the underlying mechanics of action.
Someone who responds violently to pressure still needs to grow. Theirs likely is a response with anti-social qualities. They must work on their mental side, to become more composed, disciplined, equanimous, but also to show greater understanding of the feelings and needs of others. Otherwise, power, which is always there, is misused and abused. It is not force as such that is the problem, whenever it is, but the way it is employed.
I was wielding the sledgehammer earlier to break some large piece of concrete that had become an obstacle. Every hit against the hard surface, every sense of discomfort throughout my arms and upper body, was a reminder of who I am and what I am doing for my secure subsistence here. Nature has endowed me with this power, while it has made me ever-available and eager to act. It then is a matter of my reasonableness and composure to assume responsibility in being more like Athena.